LRCX Lam Research Corporation

Investing.com -- In a note on Thursday, analysts at Bank of America named its top semiconductor picks for the fourth quarter.

Applied Materials (AMAT) sold a record $7 billion of chipmaking tools in fiscal Q3 2026. That was about 77% of its $9.1 billion in revenue for the quarter. When you own the stock, you mostly own those tool sales. A record that large is easy to read as the new normal. So what might Applied Materials investors be overlooking about those tool sales.

KLA's market value is 53.2 times its profit over the past twelve months, well above its three-year average of 36 times. A multiple that high means buyers are paying today for profit the company has not earned yet. So is KLA (KLAC) stock really expensive for the growth its business delivers.

The chipmaking equipment boom has supercharged growth for both companies, and their prospects suggest further upside in their stock prices.

You may own Applied Materials (AMAT) as a chip equipment maker that aims to hand most of its spare cash back to shareholders. A $10,000 holding a year ago is now worth about $24,500. Your stake in this business is far bigger than it was. Is Applied Materials still the business you bought.

In the most recent trading session, Lam Research (LRCX) closed at $315.56, indicating a +2.73% shift from the previous trading day.

According to the average brokerage recommendation (ABR), one should invest in Lam Research (LRCX). It is debatable whether this highly sought-after metric is effective because Wall Street analysts' recommendations tend to be overly optimistic. Would it be worth investing in the stock?

Lam Research (LRCX) drew fresh attention after management lifted its 2026 wafer fab equipment outlook to the low US$150b range, while also flagging a sharp expected rise in advanced packaging revenue. Recent trading has been choppy for Lam Research, with the share price up 14.1% over the past week but down about 19% across the last three months. Even so, the year-to-date share price return sits near 66% and the 1 year total shareholder return is about 141%, suggesting strong longer run...

A number of stocks fell in the afternoon session after the 10-year Treasury yield climbed to 5.14% following strong September business activity data that raised expectations for tighter Federal Reserve interest rate policy.

The Evercore ISI technical analyst sees semiconductor and AI infrastructure stocks as buyable after their summer decline, but says a sustained rise in the 10-year Treasury yield above 5% would challenge his bullish case.

Volatility cuts both ways - while it creates opportunities, it also increases risk, making sharp declines just as likely as big gains. This unpredictability can shake out even the most experienced investors.

Applied Materials, Lam Research and KLA stand to benefit as AI infrastructure spending boosts semiconductor equipment demand.

Applied Materials (AMAT) trades at about $472 today. Over roughly the coming twelve months, the options market prices a two-thirds-likely band for the stock, from a floor near $270 to a ceiling near $827. That band is the number a holder should be working with. It prices how far the stock can travel, never which way.

Applied Materials, Lam Research and KLA stand to benefit as BofA lifts chip equipment spending forecasts amid surging AI, memory and packaging demand.

Applied Materials and Lam Research build the tools behind every AI chip. See how their strategies differ and which stock best fits investors.

In the latest trading session, Lam Research (LRCX) closed at $310.99, marking a +2.88% move from the previous day.

Applied Materials (AMAT) runs a services business, Applied Global Services, that grew 22% from a year earlier in its latest quarter. You probably think of the company as a seller of chipmaking machines, a business that rises and falls with factory spending. The stock is down 27% over the past three months. So how large is the services business.

LRCX targets mid-40% operating margins as rising revenues, AI-driven demand and higher-margin services support expansion over several years.

Zebra Technologies has lagged the Dow Jones Industrial Average over the past year, but Wall Street remains cautiously optimistic, with analysts seeing further upside potential.

Key Stats for Applied Materials StockCurrent Price: $444. 57Target Price (Mid): ~$790Street Target: ~$641Potential Total Return: ~78%Annualized IRR: ~15% / yearWhat Happened?Applied Materials (AMAT) closed up 6.

December S&P 500 E-Mini futures (ESZ26) are up +0.69%, and December Nasdaq 100 E-Mini futures (NQZ26) are up +1.09% this morning as risk appetite improved amid a continued drop in oil prices and growing optimism ahead of a summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

Right now AI policy is being written in real time, from a proposed U.S. “AI Force” to fresh talks between Washington and Beijing. That mix of support, softer regulatory signals and closer U.S.-China dialogue is pulling certain AI infrastructure and semiconductor stocks into the spotlight. This article focuses on three AI Infrastructure and Semiconductor Leaders from our screener that appear particularly sensitive to these headlines, and discusses what that could mean for your portfolio...

The Philadelphia semiconductor index, known as SOX, rose for a fourth consecutive day on Friday, with a new batch of chip stocks leading the charge.

Stock Market Today: The Dow Jones index falls Friday as oil prices reverse higher. Apple, AMD, Micron and Sandisk are key movers.

Chip equipment stocks are breaking away from the broader semiconductor pack on Friday, and the pattern of who is buying what reveals something specific about where money is flowing and why the tools layer keeps trading on its own terms.

Steve Eisman thinks the real winners of the AI arms race are not the chip designers everyone is fighting over but the suppliers equipping both sides of the battle. Five stocks have already lapped Nvidia in 2026, and Eisman ranks them by who survives if the whole AI ecosystem cracks.

Lam Research has delivered very strong gains over the past few years, which puts a lot of weight on one question for investors who care about valuation. Given that history, is the current share price properly grounded in the company’s earnings power today and what the market expects it to earn over time? Over the past 5 years, Lam Research has returned about 372%, which puts a spotlight on whether that kind of outcome is already fully reflected in the earnings profile investors are paying...

Cisco, Lam Research and Thermo Fisher highlight AI, networking and life-science demand, while microcaps Ampco-Pittsburgh and Catalyst Bancorp offer added depth.

Cisco, Lam Research and Thermo Fisher headline today's research reports, with AI demand, customer activity and growth strategies in focus.

Chip demand looks far stronger than slowdown fears imply

Applied Materials (AMAT) has fallen about 21% from its August high, and the question is whether to buy it. Its own history says dips this size have usually been worth buying, and its valuation argues the other way. The history is specific, so start there.

Applied Materials and Lam Research benefit from AI-driven semiconductor demand, but broader portfolio makes AMAT a safer choice.

Axcelis shares fell 22.4% in a month as recovering bookings and demand collide with weaker margins, backlog pressure and heavy China exposure.

Axcelis growth is returning as memory, power and aftermarket demand improve, but premium valuation and incomplete margin recovery keep execution in focus.

Axcelis plans a $35M South Korea ion implantation facility to expand Asian capacity as memory, power and mature-node activity improves.

The bank sees memory, AI servers, and chip equipment supporting another leg of semiconductor growth.

In the closing of the recent trading day, Lam Research (LRCX) stood at $270.7, denoting a -1.02% move from the preceding trading day.

Applied Materials (AMAT) stock fell 7.1% in its latest session, to about $424. It sits 41% below the high it set within the past year, after a twelve-month run in which it returned 151% against 17% for the S&P 500. It did not fall on a bad quarter, and that is what makes the next leg hard to size.

LRCX has pulled back to historical support on the charts

KLAC's AI-driven process-control demand, advanced-packaging growth, robust backlog and strong capital returns support further upside despite margin pressure.

AMAT's AGS revenues hit a record $1.78 billion as demand for fab services rises, with growth expected to remain strong through 2026 and beyond.

Lam Research and Applied Materials both posted blowout quarters riding the same AI capex wave, but only one of them moves in genuine lockstep with ASML as EUV adoption accelerates into the next node generation.

A number of stocks fell in the afternoon session after the chief executives of Anthropic, OpenAI, and SpaceX publicly united to call for a deliberate slowdown in the development of frontier AI models over escalating safety risks. According to CNBC, the sell-off was triggered by an essay published over the weekend by Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, who urged a more cautious approach to frontier model advancement and called for independent safety monitoring. In a rare show of unity among competitors,

Anthropic's CEO called for slowing AI model progress over the weekend, and by Monday morning the shockwave had traveled straight to the fab equipment order books that Wall Street spent 2026 treating as untouchable.

The technology sector is the S&P 500's worst performer today, down more than 2%. Here are some of the tech names getting hit hardest: Coherent, down 11%. Hewlett Packard Enterprise, down 11% Corning, down 11% Teradyne, down 11% Lumentum, down 8.

ASML's monopoly on the machines that build every advanced chip in the world just endured a month of relentless selling, and one prominent Wall Street analyst thinks the market has handed investors a rare opening at a price that grossly undervalues what comes next.

Lam Research (NASDAQ:LRCX) executives said the semiconductor equipment industry remains constrained by available clean-room capacity despite a higher outlook for wafer-fabrication equipment spending, citing sustained artificial intelligence demand and a growing pipeline of new fabs. Speaking at the

Lam Research (NASDAQ:LRCX) said it is prioritizing customer execution, capacity readiness and product-roadmap delivery as semiconductor equipment demand remains strong and customers seek tools sooner than the company can provide them. During a Goldman Sachs discussion with Senior Equity Analyst Jim

Semiconductors are the silicon backbone of the digital revolution. Compute-intensive AI workloads are also priming them for the next wave of secular growth, so it’s no wonder the industry has outperformed the market over the past six months, delivering returns of 46.2% compared to 12.7% for the S&P 500.

Applied Materials (AMAT) has added 6.1% over the last five trading days, while the S&P 500 gained 0.1%, and a run like that pulls money in. The five-day move is not the question here. What matters is what this stock does to your money every time the market moves, because it travels much further than the index in both directions.